The Patron

The West Quad

The bullets whizzed past Adrien's face as he and his two companions dashed through the woods. Even the most honorable of soldiers would've been scared out of his uniform by now, but Adrien just laughed as he reloaded his pistol. These assassins were fools to believe they could kill the king's guards.

"Go deeper!" Lannion called from someplace off to Adrien's left. "We can lose them in the trees!"

The party made an abrupt turn and high-tailed it into the woods, bobbing and weaving like rabbits in a thicket.

Another minute in, and the footsteps of the assailants grew fainter. The third man, Wesley, quickly scaled a pine tree while Lannion and Adrien ducked behind some shrubbery at the edge of a clearing to reload their pistols. Despite their heavy breathing and glancing eyes, the guardsmen were not panicked. They had been in these sorts of situations hundreds of times. If anything, the three men enjoyed frequent dances with death.

"They've given up, the yellow-bellied cowards!" called the young Wesley from his vantage point. "They've gone on up the road." He began to descend from the tree, his sword swinging in its holster.

"Just when it was beginning to get good!" Adrien cried out. He rolled his eyes and sighed.

"No matter," Lannion said, brandishing his sword and jabbing it into a nearby tree. "We've still got a good report to give Commander Hershe."

"That's true, but it would've been much more fun to off the fools."

"Now there, my good friend, we mustn't kill off all the ruffians in Terrendell or there won't be any more sport."

"You make a fair point, Lannion," Adrien conceded, "Yet—"

Adrien paused. Something rustled in the bushes on the edge of the clearing. He glanced at Lannion, who nodded and slowly pulled his sword from the tree trunk. Wesley reached behind his back to grab the pistol in his belt. He pushed his blond hair from his eyes.

Lannion held up a fist. On my mark.

He lifted his fingers one by one. One, two, three.

They sprung into action. Assailants appeared out of thin air—from the bushes, half-hidden behind the trunks of trees. They were the same masked men from before.

The three guardsmen moved as one, a flawless team—Wesley, the deadly accurate sharpshooter, Adrien, the fearless swordsman, and Lannion, the jack-of-all-trades, the model soldier. The assassins didn't stand a chance.

Adrien dueled fiercely with a man in a blue mask. The man was deft with a sword, but not as skilled at Adrien. The guardsman had been sword fighting from the moment he could lift a blade, and his skill was elevated by the insane energy that filled him every time he fought, energy that manifested itself in his gleaming eyes. He switched hands, jabbed and parried, and smacked his opponent's blade off into the surrounding shrubs.

With a smug grin Adrien held his sword tip to the chin of his enemy. "Any last words?" he taunted.

The man smiled, revealing a row of yellow teeth. He uttered a single word: "Duck."

A blunt blow connected with Adrien's skull with a sickening crack, and everything went black.

-=-=-

 Adrien woke up on a stiff wooden table in the middle of a dimly lit room. Various dried herbs hung from the ceiling. He tried to lift his head to survey the rest of the space, but the slightest movement made his vision swim with stars. He closed his eyes to dull the pain.

A door swung open and careful footsteps followed. He heard a shuffling of jars and the faint drip of water. The stranger pressed a cool cloth onto Adrien's forehead. It was infused with some unknown substance that soothed his throbbing head in an instant. Adrien could barely keep from moaning in relief.